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I am going through a hiatus in writing this blog. I decided to take a break until October when hopefully refreshed, I shall resume regular blogging. Today’s post is a guest post about the updated version of a very useful app that I have reviewed before.

[Guest post by Victor]

When I was requested to do a guest review on RCPT(pronounced receipt) an android mobile Application that produces Mpesa receipts by Disruptive Technologies LTD, I was skeptical anyone would want a receipt other than the SMS notification from Mpesa. The app is now available on Google Play whereas previous it was only available on the Safaricom App Store.

My RCPT logo

After installing the app, it read my Mpesa Paybill and Lipa na Mpesa (buy goods) text messages and produced virtual receipts arranged by date with the latest payments first and so on. I also noticed that it does the same for Nairobi water and services LTD although I did not test the feature since I am not their customer. I was impressed by the simple and crisp new design.

Home:

My RCPT app

Payments made:

All Mpesa paybill payments organized as receipts in the app

The app certainly addresses the main headache users will face if mobile payments are going to be the norm rather than exception. The SMS receipts currently in use are restricted to mobile devices and people will want to use the receipts in other platforms. You want to print a receipt, you want to email a receipt, but all you have is a text message! This app offers you a way to generate virtual e-receipts and PDF receipts which you can then print/email.

The Virtual Receipt and PDF Receipt

The virtual e- receipts are free to use and they are used from within the App by scanning the QR code which is the Mpesa transaction id encoded into QR code format. The app incorporates a QR scanner and this is genius since to verify an Mpesa transaction id currently requires you to type – not cool at all.

MyRCPT virtual receipt

By scanning the QR, you can verify whether a receipt (from your customer) is genuine or not, rather than manually checking the transaction Id. The QR scanner can be used to admit or allow access to concerts, virtual vouchers, members clubs, sports and games e.t.c. I loved this feature the most since I have seen concert organizers print paybill number for their events and people can start showing up with printed receipts from the App or just show the virtual receipt and the concert organizers can scan to verify authenticity.

However, scanning the QR code on receipts and generating PDF receipt is a premium service that you activate by paying Ksh 20 via Safaricom M-PESA within the App. I was happy to pay the ksh 20 because this is the first App that has used MPESA for in app payments and I was curious to test if it works. To pay you simply enter your mobile number on the provided text field and click on the button then wait for USSD prompt from Safaricom to pop up on your phone to complete the transaction. To complete the transaction, you use your Bonga pin (Which I think is lame from Safaricom-not many people know their bonga pins so they need to change this). I give the developers (Disruptive technologies LTD) A+ for having figured out in-app payment which will be a revenue source for many developers in Kenya who have been left out in the cold for long by Google and have no way of Monetizing via Google Wallet.

Activating the premium service on My RCPT

Applications of this App

Today I heard my colleague who is a landlord complaining that since Nairobi Water and sewerage company went digital, there is no way he can verify whether the tenants are paying for water or not since the SMS receipts they forward to his phone could be doctored. I recommended the App and he rang to thank me for solving that small trust issue with his tenants. Surely there is need for this App. I can foresee more people finding other uses for the app but first the developers really need to educate people that they can use the app to make their transactions better and easier. I hope this review kick starts the education.

Two years ago this month, my son was born. I can’t believe it has been almost two years already; watching a baby grow is the very definition of time flying. I remember being so excited as his expected date of birth grew closer and closer, and I made a mistake a lot of first time mothers make, buying a lot of unnecessary stuff and lots of brand new clothes.

Cute newly born baby

I was working at the time (up to the 39th week!) and so I didn’t have time to go to Toy Market or Gikomba or wherever people go to buy baby clothes at a bargain, so I bought my clothes online from smartbaby.co.ke (for some reason, they have closed shop?). They were brand new so a little expensive. In my excitement, I bought a lot of size zero clothes (newborn clothes), and he outgrew them in a week! Forget a month, literally one week. By the second week, we couldn’t squeeze him into size zero clothes.

Yes it is safe to buy second hand clothes for babies because the first baby would have barely worn them (given their growth rate), and all you have to do is wash (and bleaching is optional) the clothes, rinse them in a gentle fabric softener, dry, iron them and put them away in the baby bag/closet awaiting the arrival of the little one. Sigh, writing this brings back memories of J as an infant, I miss him so.

Anyway, no need to drag your pregnant self (and darling you do drag yourself along :D) to a crowded market to shop, do it online via a site like OLX. A search for baby clothes on OLX reveals traders selling “mtumba camera” baby clothes for as low as Ksh. 100 each. “mtumba camera” means they are barely used, high quality clothes.

Baby clothes on OLX

And baby clothes are not the only things you can buy on OLX, you can get everything that you do need from the website. Baby cot, baby basins/baths, bibs, toys, strollers, car seats, books (in my enthusiasm I remember also buying lots of books to read at bedtime for the baby, which I did all of twice in these 2 years) etc. Just make sure to not commit payment before you can see what you are buying, and arrange to meet the seller at a safe and public location.

We grew up listening to lingala songs, and we sang them word for word sometimes even when we did not know what we were singing. That wasn’t important though, gyrating our waists to the rhythm of the beats was where we put most effort, but I don’t know about you. Once we grow older, we listen to the same songs with nostalgia and scour youtube for videos with lyrics but they are scanty.

Enter myLingala Android App, which I have reviewed before. The app not only has the lyrics in lingala, but also their English translations. This is an improved version which incorporates audio-streaming so you can listen to the song as you scroll down the lyrics. In addition, you can also request a song, which will come with the next update.

Some of the songs in the lingala App

A song with lyrics translated

You can get this app from the Safaricom app store, and pay only Kshs. 199 using your airtime. A lot effort went into this app and should be appreciated.

A second app I would recommend for business people who are struggling to keep records of M-Pesa transactions, and giving receipts to customers or presenting receipts when needed, is MyRcpt. It is also an Android app that is available on, appropriately, the Safaricom App Store for also Ksh. 199 which you can pay with your airtime. Businesses need the paper work filed so this app will be quite useful to business people.

According to the brief description on the store: “MyRcpt is an application that converts your M-pesa paybill and lipa na mpesa texts into pdf receipts that you can export to your email account or pdf reader and print for filing purposes. It can also serve as proof of payment and legitimizes your text receipt into a real physical receipt that people can recognize and accept. With MyRcpt you can now rest easy and file all your bulk payments, rent,utility bill e.t.c for accountability purposes.”

I tried it out, and once I ran it, all my Paybill transactions showed up. The app is easy to use and I like the minimalist design.

Whenever I meet kids, one thing we can always bond over is the applications on my phone/tablet. Show them an interesting game and you have made instant friends. On the other hand if you have nothing going on in your phone, then what else will you talk about with kids who only speak Japanese? It is definitely easier to talk with adults than with kids when your grasp of a language is basic.

I started by playing Bouncy Monkey. It is a nice enjoyable game with easy instructions, tap to jump and tap continuously to use the parachute*. It’s easy to play so it quickly becomes addictive, as you try to beat the high score. I managed to unlock about 4 levels the first time I played it. And of course when you clear a level, you get a screenfull of bananas! You are a bouncy monkey after all! Extra features include the ability to choose the colour scheme you want. There are in-app ads but well, since it is a free game you have to live with it! It’s easy to ignore them though.

Tap and hold to jump and start playing the game right away

Bouncy Monkey Screen 1

When you finish a level, there is celebration! It’s bananas!

Clearing a level in Bouncy Monkey

I continued playing trying to increase my high score! This is how many levels I have now unlocked.

In this game, a little boy called Jimmy is not only running from a dog, but he also has to navigate obstacles ahead. It is like Temple Run for kids, the concept is the same at the very least. I am still trying to unlock the first level though!

The dog just won’t stop chasing Jimmy!

Still stuck on level 1. I want to unlock the 9 levels and then see what lies beyond!

December, the Christmas month, is finally here with us. I always look forward to December, being the holiday month that is. Signifying the end of what is sometimes a long year, sometimes a good year (which would feel short). This will be the first time I will be spending Christmas away from my family 🙁 (大変)

Anyway, I woke up this morning to the beginnings of snow and the coldest temperatures I have ever experienced. It wasn’t so bad, but of course this is only the beginning. By February the winter will be at its coldest so I should reserve my judgement until then. Still, the landscape is beautiful.

Snow at the Kanazawa University campus

That being said, in December, you will indulge in all manner of excesses: shopping, eating and drinking. By January, almost everyone is broke. I am going to Tokyo for the Christmas break and Tokyo is quite expensive (perhaps the world’s most expensive city) and I am contemplating leaving my ATM card behind! Of course I must first set aside the money for January survival!

Anyway, if you are in Kenya, there is a way to clear your January bills early through OLX, bearing in mind you can sell everything and anything on that site. You can also raise money for December debauchery 😀 Start early, make an ad that stands out. Sell anything (except the illegal stuff) and everything. Go through your inventory for the year, find clothes and shoes you haven’t worn in 2014, books you might never read again, random electronics gathering dust on shelves, furniture crowding your apartment, quails that failed as a business.. the platform to sell everything is there, so use it. Create ads that stand out, here are some tips to do that. Good luck in raising the money! Let’s enjoy the holidays, but stay safe. Long live December!

Once in a while, I might get a request to write about an app, a website, a phone review.. so I will use the service/app/website/phone etc and write my experience. But in this case, I wasn’t in a position to use Mpesa, seeing as I am halfway across the world in a country with no roaming.

So I asked the requester to do a post and here we are. Hope you will use this app to make your transactions smoother and error free. No one wants to send money to the wrong number! This is also efficient for Paybill Numbers, imagine having to memorize all paybills, and which KPLC number is for pre or post paid.

The Tuma Pesa App:

tuma pesa

It’s happened to every MPESA user, you urgently need to send money to someone but you don’t have the number off head, just in your Address book, So you end up navigating to your Phonebook, copying the number, navigating back to your app drawer launching the SIM Tool Kit and pasting the number when prompted.

But that’s too much work and often we simply tempt fate and end up sending money to the wrong Number. What about PayBill Numbers and their respective accounts? Well that’s even worse, you copy the PayBill name and account somewhere on a piece of paper maybe and you key them in one by one into MPESA when prompted. You manually have to keep track of all the PayBill numbers and accounts so you can refer to them when you want to use them.

What if you didn’t have to do all that, What if it was as easy and convenient for you as downloading an app that takes care of all you Numbers, PayBills and Accounts? Well, that is what TumaPesa is all about. To use TumaPesa simply download from google play store or click on the following link [TumaPesa Mpesa Companion].

How does it work? Easy, let me walk you through the 3 key features that make TumaPesa revolutionary. Upon install you get a slide introduction of how to use the app. It highlights the key features of the app and directions of use as explained below.

1. TumaPesa loads all your contacts and formats them for you in a nice intuitive list that can be searched by name or number. All the contacts are pulled from both Sim Card and Phone Memory.

Say I want to send cash to Savvy Kenya, well I simply search for her name, click on it and the SIM Tool Kit is opened. In addition to this her Number is copied to the clip board and a pop up of her details appears on the top right corner with her Name and Number. You can transact safely and securely without the fear of sending money to the wrong number.

In the app you search for a contact

Select the contact and it is loaded to the SIM toolkit

For contacts you send money frequently you have the option of saving them by long pressing on a contact name and they automatically get stored in the Favorites Tab and a star appears next to them indicating they are now in favorites.

Favoriting contacts

For PayBill numbers and accounts you can save a list of them in the PayBill section of the app and use them whenever you need.

Saving paybill numbers

Saving paybill numbers

The App is currently only available for Android but an IOS version will be out in the next few weeks so watch out.

Please download the app and give feedback. There are always so many programmers out there willing to make your life easier, so appreciate the effort by downloading the app, it is free, after all!

It’s one thing to pack for a week away from home, or perhaps for a month. What do you take when you are relocating altogether? And you have a 30Kg luggage limit! How do you pack your entire life into 30Kgs of luggage? If I don’t get a nervous breakdown this current week, I shall get through any other period. I am even yet to buy a suitcase, and I don’t want one of those generic ones found in supermarkets that break apart after a single journey. Then I decided to try online, went to olx and oh gosh, people are posting weird, dark and blurry pictures of suitcases with no descriptions. And only one picture to give you an idea of the suitcase. I think I have no option but to go back to the supermarket and hope for a good find within my budget.

Anyway, in my packing and sorting out my stuff, I have come across several items I need to get rid of, things I don’t need any more but I could make some money if I put them up on olx. There is this set of baby cots, a bigger cot and a Moses-like smaller cot. Note: if you have a baby, don’t be in a hurry to buy those Chinese-made metal baby cots no matter how cute they may look. The baby outgrows them really fast, so if you buy them, just know it’s for a short period. It’s better to get a good wooden cot made for you that the baby can use till they are 2 or 3 years old, and can then transfer to those smaller beds. Anyway, I shall be selling the set below on olx, any takers?

Baby cot set that Jeremy has outgrown. Click to see larger image.

There are many more items I would love to give away, or sell and not just shoes or clothes. If you’re moving places, this could be a chance to upgrade your furniture, electronics etc. Get some cash to start afresh. If you are selling something online, please for the love of the Internet and all that is holy, take pictures in good lighting (take them outside if you live in one of those flats that never receive natural light), take many of those pictures, and write a good description. It doesn’t have to be long, make it like a mini skirt. Long enough to cover the essentials, short enough to entice. People like me who are looking for deals online are relying on sellers to put up a good & comprehensive database of affordable items in all categories. If you’re moving out and there’s stuff you don’t want to leave behind for your nasty caretaker, neighbours or landlord, sell it on olx.

Despite friends’ misgivings about olx (so many cons there, you have to be careful), I have actually used for some two great deals: a laptop and a baby car seat. The thing about olx that you have to realize is that it’s a platform to connect buyers and sellers, and cons have always been there even offline.

I recently downloaded the OLX app and was surprised at the ease of navigation and fast loading of the pages (yes I was on Safaricom internet!).

The user interface is really simple and neat.

OLX App loading screen

It instantly picked the location nearest to me so that when I search for deals, I get the most relevant and most accessible deals.

Oh wait, this is yet another welcoming screen.

Oh wait, another welcoming screen on the OLX App.

Ok here’s the screen that has already picked location. Loading was really quite fast. Maybe it was the timing, so the internet was a bit faster as more people were asleep!

OLX app showing Komarock as my nearest location!

From here, I randomly browsed by category (Cars) just to see what I would get and how the app works. I instantly got the cars being listed near/around Komarock.

I wondered if it’s possible to change location, I mean, if you are looking for something as big as a car, your location shouldn’t be limited to just your constituency or something!

Just tapping on the location, I was able to zoom out to the larger location of Nairobi. You can also choose to list all cars listed in Kenya; and so on..

Cars listed in Nairobi using olx app

I tried to navigate to other categories as well, the transition was just as smooth and fast. I think if you have a reliable internet connection,, you’re likely to enjoy browsing for deals using the app. As you can see, my location chosen now is the larger geographical area “Kenya”, and you can narrow or widen your search area as much as you like.

Searching for a different category on olx app

Narrowing down location to Komarock, I get jobs and services in my area.

Narrowing down location to Komarock on the olx app

You can also apply various filters to your search, such as prices, make of cars etc.

You can also save your search for future reference.

If you’re selling something, it’s easier to upload pics directly from the phone as opposed to first transferring them to the computer then uploading on the olx site, or relying on the stability of your browser to maintain the connection as you try to upload the pics.

The app is available on iOS, Android, Nokia ad blackberry app stores. Here’s the link to the Android one

Last year, I was part the panel of judges for the inaugural Olx social media awards in Kenya. Our work was to shortlisted five out of all the the nominated persons/accounts in each of the categories, and then the public would do the final voting. This year, I am happy to announce that I will also be a judge 🙂 The list has not changed from last year. The awards culminated in a gala dinner at the Laico Regency. OLX is also the sponsor for this year’s Social Media Awards.

OLX to sponsor social media awards

Last year, the OLX Social Media Awards had 25 categories including Social Media News Channel of the Year, Social Media Personality of the Year, Social Media Corporate Award of the Year and Social Media Innovation of the Year. New categories will be introduced this year to make the Awards more exciting and inclusive.

I will keep you updated on when the nominations are open so you can nominate your favorite social media influencers, we judges will shortlist them based on criteria that we will share with the public, and finally you will get the chance to vote for the final winner.

The awards create a platform for individuals and organizations to celebrate the contribution of social media in the social, economic and political spheres by recognizing those who have used it positively to impact lives.

Jokes and taglines aside (Everything sells!), there are some things that you cannot sell on olx (or any other online platform for that matter), for various reasons. Mostly legal and/or cultural.

OLX has to validate ads to ensure no laws are being violated before allowing them to go live, that is why when you post an ad, you might be told to wait for sometime before the ad can appear on the website.